Well hell and here I thought it was due to neandrethals driving Ford Explorers and not worrying about their "carbon footprint." Next some one is going to say that global warming is the result of solar cycles and not our current standard of living.

9
posted on 08/18/2010 11:47:29 AM PDT
by from occupied ga
(Your most dangerous enemy is your own government,)

While man and mammoth were in the same neighborhood, it’s highly unlikely that a group of humans could have put the final hurt into the population with stone tipped weapons.

If it were true that primitive technology was sufficient to wipe-out swaths of mega-fauna, by that reasoning, elephants, rhinos and other similar mega-fauna should have become extinct by the time the first puff of gun powder reached the shores of africa.

Man didn’t become dominant by shooting from the hip or acting like tarzan.

Our ancestors were pragmatic scavengers and not the foolhardy type to risk their lives (or the life of a hunting party member) to take down a mammoth when the abundance of smaller (less harmful) game was bountiful.

My 2 cents... or 2 clams as Fred Flintstone would insist.

16
posted on 08/18/2010 12:11:25 PM PDT
by hkusp40
(NJ: The Laboratory of failed social experiments.)

The Atlanteans had a green-tech society powered by lithium-based batteries. They carelessly discarded their lithium batteries on the steppes which poisoned non-ruminants. They got theirs in the end though.

As a big fan of ERB, I have to tell you that we should all be so lucky as to have mankind “act like Tarzan”; i.e. as a responsible steward of the wild.

Whatever the logistics of extermination of megafauna with stone tipped weapons, the disappearance of many different species of mega-fauna over many different lands- that just happen to coincide with human habitation - seems to indicate that it really might not have been so difficult as you imagine.

20
posted on 08/18/2010 12:21:15 PM PDT
by allmendream
(Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)

Well, according to 'Clan of the Cave Bear,' that infallible guide to Cro-Magnon Life, Love and Cuisine, one might try grinding it, mixing it with Hamburger Helper, and freezing patties for bar-B-qs later in the summer when all of the Clans gather on the steppes for a little flea market and make-out action.

21
posted on 08/18/2010 12:35:58 PM PDT
by Kenny Bunk
(The Republican Party was founded to Save the Union. Can it now Save the Republic?)

The famous Beresovka mammoth, excavated by Otto Herz and E. W. Pfizenmayer and shipped back to St. Petersburg, Russia in 1902, first drew attention to the preserving properties of being quick-frozen when buttercups were found in its mouth and undigested food in its stomach. (Pfizenmayer, 1939) This was no gradual shift in temperatureit had to be both sudden and drastic!

The spear points stuck into them seems to argue that they did focus on them other than to scavenge their remains.

(mostly) From Science News. Dec 19, 2009.

North American Megafauna: 14,000 to 11,000 years ago.giant sloths; short faced bears; giant polar bears; California tapirs; peccaries; the American lion; giant condors; Miracinonyx ; saber-toothed cats like Xenosmilus, Smilodon and the scimitar cat; Homotherium; dire wolves; saiga; camelids such as two species of now extinct llamas and Camelops; at least two species of bison; stag-moose; the shrub-ox and Harlan's muskox; horses; mammoths and mastodons; and giant beavers as well as birds like teratorns.

Giant Kangaroo: 45,000 years ago: Australia. Within 5,000 years of human settlement, 90% of mammal species larger than a house cat, including the giant kangaroo, had gone extinct.

Large Caribbean Sloths: 4,400 years ago: Caribbean. By 800 years after human settlement, serval species of sloths died out.

Elephant Bird: 1,000 years ago. Madagascar. Within a millennium of humans’ arrival, the island's elephant birds, and other magafauna, were largely gone.

Moa: 500 years ago. New Zealand. Within two centuries of human settlement.

Dodo: 350 years ago. Mauritius. Within five or six decades of the island's first permanent settlement, the dodo was done.

25
posted on 08/18/2010 1:19:03 PM PDT
by allmendream
(Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)

The correlation between human habitation in new regions and megafauna extinction is interesting. But if it's the sole explanation, why do megafauna still exist in huge regions of Africa and Asia? If humans are so bloodthirsty and short-sighted, why didn't they wipe out elephants, camels, hippos, rhinos, etc. with stone weapons where human populations already existed? They had the same human characteristics as Clovis, etc.

I don't deny that humans were responsible for eliminating some species. The moa's extinction happened in historical times and humans were the cause. I don't dispute that humans hunted some of the larger animals but I have a real problem imagining that small bands of hunters could wipe out the entire range of megafauna. The matter remains a totally open question in my mind.

26
posted on 08/18/2010 2:30:54 PM PDT
by Bernard Marx
(I dont trust the reasoning of anyone who writes then when they mean than.)

“The spear points stuck into them seems to argue that they did focus on them other than to scavenge their remains.”

I’ll agree to disagree at this point.

The dual purpose use of a spear on large game: flensing.

It’s a fairy tale that either individual hunters or bands of hunters decided to sacrafice themselves or the safety of the hunting party to pursue dangerous game. I am often confronted by the anti-hunting community with similar presentations of “data”.

I imagine that (as tribes in africa had) they learned their lessons early and passed it on to generations: “if you mess with the mammoth, you’ll become a stain on the forest floor”

As far as the “list” provided, focusing on the mega-fauna and giant carnivores, they were on a decline without the help of man. I do believe that whatever the animals were feeding on, started to become scarce for a myriad of reasons.

Like Ruarke says: Use enough gun! our ancestors probably saw their buddy ‘Ogg’ get pummeled by a mammoth after a foolhardy assault.

My point: if large dangerous game was so easy to “take-out”, then why the heck did african and asian mega fauna survive when human population and technological advance was equal to or greater than the North American counterparts?

A spear point that is stuck in and broken off might remain in the carcass.

A band of experienced humans with spears can take out any contemporaneous mega-fauna without much danger at all, even a mammoth.

Mega-fauna that developed alongside humans developed a fear of them. It is likely that much of the mega-fauna that went extinct at the same time humans showed up never developed that fear. We have seen the impact of an invasive species can take place rapidly, before any local animals have time to adapt.

Much of the mega-fauna on the list seemed to be doing just fine until humans showed up, then they were gone. Have any citations for them being in a long term decline BEFORE humans made the scene?

29
posted on 08/18/2010 3:02:09 PM PDT
by allmendream
(Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)

But on that note I find it interesting that perhaps the greatest mass extinction of mega-fauna to accompany human habitation was in North America, where the indigenous inhabitants are usually credited with being ‘at one with nature’, and other such happy horse sh*t.

35
posted on 08/18/2010 4:04:35 PM PDT
by allmendream
(Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)

Well, as I said from the beginning, the data is hardly conclusive, and never will be.

We learn more and more about the past every year. New ways of interpreting old evidence are continually being developed. Consider the plate tectonics revolution. Geological processes we now take for granted were laughed at prior to the 1960s. We now have a whole new and insightful way of looking at the Earth's past.

I think the megafauna extinction mystery will eventually be solved. My hunch is catastrophism of some sort or climate change or both, but my evidence is as sketchy as yours. I sincerely doubt small roving bands of stone-age hunters could push so many species into total extinction unless they were already hanging by a thread for some other reason. It's just as logical to consider that climate conditions that made human expansion into new areas possible were also somehow responsible for the extinctions.

36
posted on 08/18/2010 4:14:33 PM PDT
by Bernard Marx
(I dont trust the reasoning of anyone who writes then when they mean than.)

"North American Megafauna: 14,000 to 11,000 years ago.giant sloths; short faced bears; giant polar bears; California tapirs; peccaries; the American lion; giant condors; Miracinonyx ; saber-toothed cats like Xenosmilus, Smilodon and the scimitar cat; Homotherium; dire wolves; saiga; camelids such as two species of now extinct llamas and Camelops; at least two species of bison; stag-moose; the shrub-ox and Harlan's muskox; horses; mammoths and mastodons; and giant beavers as well as birds like teratorns."

Those were some really busy hunters. Sorry, not buying it. Did they hunt mammoths from time to time? I'm sure they did, but there's no way they were responsible for that butcher's bill you listed.

I would also point out that some of the other examples you listed were wiped out as a result of other non-indigenous animals that the people brought along with them. It turns out that flightless birds stuck on an island can't deal with dogs, rats and pigs eating them and their eggs.

North American indians were known to “hunt” buffalo by driving whole herds off cliffs. Not the most stewardly approach, certainly, but still quite effective. It may well have worked with many of the megafauna. They didn’t necessarily have to go speart-to-tusk, mano a mano with a brute weighing some few tons.

I would submit that it’s mainly a numbers game. There simply were never enough humans around to be a serious threat to any particular species ~even~ if their hunting techniques were wasteful.

All this “living in harmony with nature” BS... is just that. They didn’t have any special sense of “balance” with nature... they just didn’t have enough numbers to do much harm, nomatter what they did. They could hunt out one area and move along to new grounds pretty much perpetually.

39
posted on 08/18/2010 4:49:13 PM PDT
by Ramius
(Personally, I give us... one chance in three. More tea?)

Now I am not saying that such evidence CONCLUSIVELY shows anything! But the extinction of much of the mega-fauna coinciding so clearly with human habitation seems to paint a compelling picture.

From the looks of things Clovis people chased the North American megafauna all the way to the North Slope of Alaska where miles of bones are stuck in the muck. Maybe worse, they apparently formed a fire line over much of Siberia and drove the megafauna all the way into the Arctic Ocean where there are complete islands made of nothing but carcasses. Fact is they must have followed them into the ocean themselves because Clovis culture disappeared about the same time. Mass suicide???

43
posted on 08/18/2010 5:56:38 PM PDT
by ForGod'sSake
(You have just two choices: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!)

As is well known, The Native Americans who lived here when the DWM showed up, lived in perfect peace and blissful harmony, in perfect cooperative brotherhood, and were at one with Mother Earth.

They were excellent executive time managers, too. They somehow managed to fit in this idyllic outlook with a busy schedule of bashing each other's brains, kidnapping, massacres, and other quaint and colorful war rituals.

South of the now non-existent border, other Native Americans were working on advanced open heart surgical techniques, which they doubtless would have mastered had their research not been stopped by the arrival of gold-crazy Spaniards and evil Christian Missionaries.

48
posted on 08/18/2010 9:36:10 PM PDT
by Kenny Bunk
(The Republican Party was founded to Save the Union. Can it now Save the Republic?)

Come now, we won because we had raised bashing each other’s brains, kidnapping, massacres and other quaint and colorful war rituals to an ART FORM, seldom matched in ferocity and cunning, and did it on a larger scale.

But I never understood this “one with nature” Iron eyes Cody the crying Sicilian Indian crap either.

History is what it was. As Teddy Roosevelt said ‘it was ridiculous to think that North America could remain the last great preserve of nomadic and horticultural society’.

They were going to be supplanted by a more productive agricultural society, as has been the history of mankind from the dawn of agriculture - and they were damn lucky it was by us. Because we are so damn good at killing that we had the power and inclination to have that most blessed of human qualities, mercy.

In the light of history we can also have understanding. Of both peoples, both on a collision course that would shape the world we live in today.

But no need to get all propaganda good guy bad buy with it. It was what it was.

49
posted on 08/18/2010 9:52:02 PM PDT
by allmendream
(Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)

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